ChamPaggNee
by The Island Hopper
Summary: Written to fill a flashfic thread on the LJ community megamind movie: "Prompt: Assuming Megamind's watch didn't go off on their date and that he's poorly immune to the Champagne's effects, 'Bernard' gets drunk." Humor & small amount of fluff, oneshot.


**Title: **Cham-Pagg-Nee  
**Rating: **Slightly PG  
**Written to fill a flashfic thread on the LJ community megamind_movie, requested by patco2007: "**Prompt: Assuming Megamind's watch didn't go off on their date and that he's poorly immune to the Champagne's effects, "Bernard" gets drunk."  
**Author's Notes: **I went ahead and decided to call MM "Bernard" throughout this story for continuity purposes, just a heads up! 

oOoOoOoOoOoO

The kiss ended much too soon for Bernard's tastes, but he supposed Roxanne's back would begin to ache in the second or third hour of their embrace should it continue as long he'd like it to. He sank back down into his chair, feeling as though his stomach were doing backflips, and immediately grabbed his glass of champagne and took a liberal gulp. Roxanne gave him a soft look from across the table but Bernard had suddenly become very interested in the contents of his glass.

"Roxanne, this cham-pagg-nee is an incredible liquid!" he proclaimed, taking another sip, and then another. "I don't think I've ever tasted anything quite like it."

"Oh come on, Bernard, you mean you've never had champagne?" Roxanne asked as she also took a small sip from her glass.

"Well, Minio – that is, my...uh, _dog, _once tried to create something he called 'bathtub gin' after reading a book about Prohibition, but all it succeeded in doing was stripping the enamel off the bathtub and we elected not to consume it as we'd both become fond of our esophageal lining. But this! _This _is something quite spectacular!" he effused, holding up his glass reverently.

Roxanne took the opportunity to pour more champagne into his glass, which he quickly downed. "Slow down. It's meant to be enjoyed, Bernard."

"I _am _enjoying it!" he cried, pouring yet more into his glass. A curious look flashed across his face. "Do you suppose that this eating establishment also carries other types of these _spirits?" _

"I'm sure they do. Wine, beer, mixed drinks – before I was a news correspondent, I was a food critic for an independent newspaper no one ever read and I did a review here once on their liquor selection. I had a helluva headache the next morning, you can be sure."

"Wine! I once – I mean, _Megamind _– once transformed the contents of the river into wine in a bid to inebriate the citizens before _crushing them like the insects they – _that is, to incapacitate them before launching his next spectacular escapade of doom, however, he didn't have a chance to taste any of it before incurring an _outrageous _fine by the city for serving alcohol without a liquor license. He had to pawn his beloved death petunia ray to pay it."

"Mm. Tragic," Roxanne answered flatly.

"Very! Roxanne, I would like to order some of this wine and have a taste. Will you partake with me?"

"Bernard, mixing your liquors – "

" – sounds like a wonderful idea, I know!" Bernard burst, holding out his champagne glass towards the waiter coming from the opposite direction. "You there, dispenser of spirits!" he called to the bewildered young waiter. "What other concoctions of fermented fruit are on offer this evening?"

"You wanna see the wine list or somethin'?" the barely-post-adolescent waiter mumbled, scratching the back of his head apathetically.

"Roxanne, what a _marvelous _establishment this is! So many spirits as to require a _list!_" Bernard chirped cheerfully. "Yes, spirit man! Bring forth this list of which you speak!" As the slack-jawed waiter slunk off in search of the wine list, Bernard leaned into Roxanne and whispered, "I would like to try this _moonshine _of which I've read so much. Do you suppose this establishment can procure such hooch?"

"Moonshine?" Roxanne asked in bafflement. "Bernard, this isn't a juke joint in West Virginia."

"Is that far?" he posed immediately, tipping the last of the champagne into his mouth.

"Might be a little drive, yeah." She gave him a worried look. "Bernard, maybe you want to slow down a little?"

Before he could respond, a thin menu was plopped down in front of Bernard by the waiter, who without further ado disappeared, leaving Bernard to eagerly snatch up the wine list and devour it hungrily with his eyes. "Such odd monikers for what are only small variations in the process of fermenting various strains of grapes," he mumbled to himself, stroking his chin absently. "I would like to try this _peanut nore, _the _cog-nack, _and _mur-lot. _Roxanne, do you prefer peanut nore or mur-lot? What about..._zin-fan-dell? _Sounds _exotic!" _

"I have a feeling at least one of us should stick to water, thanks," Roxanne answered with a small, anxious smile as Bernard jumped up from the table, heading towards the bar. She happened to catch someone from the table beside her gawking rather impolitely. She gave him what she hoped was a brave smile. "He's...a lightweight, sorry."

"Look, Roxanne!" Bernard cried proudly, having suddenly re-appeared by the side of their table, haphazardly clutching at least a half-dozen bottles of wine between his arms. "Can you believe that once I agreed to put these on something called a 'tab' that they just _let me have them?"_

"Bernard, we can't possibly drink all of those!"

"Perhaps!" He grinned. "But we can give it a good try!"

An hour later, Bernard kept one elbow on the table to keep him from keeling over while Roxanne continued to study his increasing drunkenness with a mixture of amusement and horror.

"Let me tell you a little something about _retrocausality," _Bernard slurred over his umpteenth glass of pinot noir. "The scientific implications are _horrifying _when applied to biological _inverters. _This one time – ok, ok, this _one _time – " he stopped for a moment to giggle drunkenly, " – this _one time, _I built this analytic converter ray but didn't calculate the velocity power needed to reach a target further than a few inches away and, _well, _let's just say I'm _lucky _that I didn't have hair in the first place, because – "

"Bernard, what are you talking about?"

"What?" he started, jumping slightly, perhaps having forgotten he had an unwilling captive audience in Roxanne across from him.

"What do you mean you're lucky you didn't have hair?"

"Hm?" He suddenly sat straight up, remembering his disguise. "Oh. Oh, _this _hair? On my normal human head? That grows hair follicles at a normal human rate? Oh, sure, well _this _hair – "

"Bernard, maybe we should call it a night, hm?"

"But the house band hasn't even _begun _taking requests yet!"

Roxanne threw a quick glance at the four piece string quintet in the corner, quietly playing Tchaikovsky.

"Well, perhaps you're right," Bernard sighed, leaning back in his seat. "They absolutely _refused _to play Black Sabbath when I asked them earlier, quite impolitely I might add – "

"Greatlet'sgetthecheckandgo," Roxanne intoned quickly, grabbing her purse and waving the waiter over.

Even in his inebriated state, Megamind had read up enough on human courting rituals before his date to know that it was generally considered good manners for the male to purchase the meal consumed, as it conveyed to the female in some strange way that the male was able to provide for offspring, and began to clumsily dig in his pockets for his absolutely _adorable _vintage Aerosmith wallet bought off of the electronic-Bay online. With a start, he suddenly realized all of his pockets were empty. _"Damn _that infernal ichthyoid!" he bellowed, making the elderly woman in the table next to theirs drop her spoon in her soup with a clang. "And damn his rummaging-of-pockets on laundry day!"

"Bernard, we'll go dutch, it's fine."

"While I admire your liberated female mindset, Roxanne, I am...that is...well, I seem to have...forgotten my wallet?" Bernard finished with a crooked smile.

Moments later, a couple emerged from the restaurant, one holding on for dear life to the brick mortar of the exterior, as the world had suddenly become infuriatingly slanted, and the other wearing a deep scowl, as she'd just had to plunk down a good chunk of change for the four bottles of wine and champagne that her date had consumed the vast majority of.

Bernard clutched his head. "I should invent something to stop the world from this _wretched _spinning. I shall call it the inebri-ray. Get it? Roxanne? Get it? _Inebri-ray?" _

"Let's get you a cab," Roxanne said, doing her best to ignore the insane giggles emanating from Bernard. He sidled up beside her and looked longingly up at the clear night sky as steadily as he could.

"It is _beautiful, _isn't it?" he breathed. Roxanne followed his gaze and nodded with a small smile.

"It really is."

"Just _think _of all that's out there, just waiting to be explored! Billions of solar systems, trillions of stars! All floating out there in a miasma more exquisite and complicated than any mind in the universe could possibly comprehend! How many beings on other planets are looking up at their alien skies right at this moment, looking out into the ethereal majesty of the cosmos, and looking at one tiny little dot sparkling in the night sky, looking at our little home here in the cosmos, and _also _imagining who and what thrive on the surface of that star?"

"Bernard, that's...that's beautiful," Roxanne said quietly. He slowly put his arm around her, still looking up.

"Do you want to hear something odd, Roxanne?" he whispered, still gazing, enraptured, up at the night sky. "Out of all the stars, all of the possibilities contained in those twinkling balls of light, there's nowhere else in the galaxy I'd rather be than on _this _sphere of light, because that's the only place where you are."

A small tear pricked the side of Roxanne's eye and she wiped it away quickly. "Bernard, that's – I – "

The effect of liquid courage in his veins, Bernard placed a soft, gentle kiss on the side of Roxanne's mouth as a cab finally pulled up to the curb to take him home. They held hands in silence for a moment, each looking carefully, even somewhat bashfully into each other's eyes before Bernard slowly lowered himself into the cab.

After a long moment of deliberation, Roxanne got in after him and the cab sped away into the night.


End file.
